'What can I give that is all of me?
My heart's not good cause it's split in two
What can I give that is all for you?
These arms are all I have
But I hold you like I do love you.'

"Arms" ~ Paper Kites

~OL~

They took another walk and ended up by the creek, on their backs. Clint listened to trout splash their way downstream, the dance of water over venerable rocks and their algae beards.

Pete was halfway asleep but Clint mourned to see this time end, the boy relaxed and comfortable—talking. Who knew if he'd be this open tomorrow? Clint couldn't bring him stuff to fix everyday, though he'd be lying if he said he hadn't considered it. Maybe he could break their microwave.

"Hey, Pete?"

Pete's eyes slid open again.

"I ramble to you all the time about my life but I don't really know much about you."

Pete went ramrod straight. The grass rustled when he clenched a hand into it, jaw tight.

"I'm not fishing for big details or anything…"

Not much.

"Just that I realized I don't know stuff like your favourite colour or whether you like pineapple on pizza."

Pete's eyes sparked. An exaggerated, pining sigh fell from his lips as he gazed at birds overhead.

Clint laughed. "I'll take that as a yes. Hawaiian is a favourite?"

"The best."

"Duly noted for next time we let Cooper order pizza and his nutty flavour choices."

"Blue."

"Favourite colour is blue. Okay, got it. And your favourite movie is suitably cliché for a kid who can fix top of the line tech."

Pete rolled his eyes.

"Favourite food?"

A furrow indented between Pete's eyes, right over his nose. He mulled on that for far longer than Clint thought he would. A good minute or two. Most people had some idea of their favourite food.

Pete's voice was quiet. "Thai larb."

Clint too kept his eyes on the treetops, but he gave Pete's hand a quick squeeze and let it go. If anyone had a mastery at hiding painful memories behind short answers, it was Clint. He recognized a peer in that regard. "I'll put it on the supper rotation."

Pete fidgeted, bashful, but didn't argue.

"Favourite holiday?"

"Thanksgiving."

"Nice." Clint smiled. "Me too. Literally a weekend dedicated to food and sharing and napping a lot. Man's greatest festive achievement."

"Mmm."

Since Clint could only just see Pete in his peripheral vision, it forced Pete to keep talking instead of signing or writing answers. "Alright, here's a crucial one—favourite junk food snack?"

"Birthday cake Oreos."

"Are you serious?" Clint threw up a hand. He was pleased when Pete didn't flinch, and Clint even spied the glint of teeth. "That's disgusting. Surely you have higher standards."

"They're even better dipped in peanut butter."

"Ugh. You and Lila with your peanut butter and Oreos. It's a war crime, is what it is. You get the goopy bits all over your hand!"

Pete shrugged. "Like licking it off my fingers."

"Must be a teenager thing."

Pete tucked an elbow under his head. When Clint stole a peek, Pete's dimples were still on full display, one deeper and higher than the other cheek.

He's just a boy. You were somebody's baby once, Pete. Someone rocked you in their arms and peppered kisses on your forehead and made silly faces so you'd laugh, show those dimples…what happened to lead you here?

The tether wrapped around Clint's diaphragm, threatening to choke him.

"How are those ribs, buddy?"

"Good as new."

"Yeah? I don't mind checking if you want a second opinion on them growing back correctly. Growing straight, I mean. Wouldn't do for something to press on your lungs."

Pete shook his head.

"Okay." An old debate and one Clint was incapable of winning. No way he touched the kid, even to check on injuries, without his permission. Besides, a month was plenty long enough for them to begin the recalcification process.

"Your favourite colour?" asked Pete.

Clint let his own eyes droop, only his were from fondness. "The official answer is black—spies don't get to wear much else. But the real answer is purple."

"Cool."

Clint gave up pretense and turned his head to look at Pete, only to see Pete doing the exact same thing. Gosh, this kid.

Humour and kindness lingered under the nuclear holocaust of trauma in the kid's daily thoughts. Clint couldn't miss it in the eyes that lit up upon seeing a cranberry red cardinal or pointed to a flower in the bush beside them or still glowed from fixing the hearing aid. That facet of innocence survived in the battlefield of the teen's soul. By what miracle, Clint had no idea, but it relieved him to see it, every time.

"Pete?" Clint tried to speak above the soft tone and failed. "How old are you?"

Pete's happy expression dimmed.

"You can tell me and it stays between us. I won't share, not even with my wife if you don't want."

The boy bit his bottom lip and clutched nervous fingers in his sweater front. Clint laid as still as he could.

"I'm forty-six," Clint offered. "Forty-seven in July."

"S…" Pete untucked his right arm only for it join his left in the sweater. Pearly white knuckles flexed under too-thin skin. He swallowed. "I'm seventeen."

Something inside Clint shattered, even though this wasn't an epiphany by any stretch of the imagination. Hearing his dreaded fears out loud made it real. He couldn't lie to himself that maybe the kid was twenty and just happened to have a terrible baby face, that those animated eyes and lack of facial hair were the result of genetics.

No, the kid seemed young because he wasn't even done growing yet. He was young.

Apprehension crept into Pete's eyes, waiting for Clint's reaction.

Clint melted, whole body in a fondu lilt solely for the boy beside him. So young…

"Thank you for telling me." Clint brushed a knuckle over Pete's cheek, where the dimple had been. "It's scary to admit it to someone you barely know."

Pete nodded.

"You've had to act older to survive, I'm assuming."

Pete's eyes grew shiny but he wrestled it back. "How did you…"

"You're not the only one who's slept outdoors out of necessity, kid. I lived in a cardboard box for a few weeks with my brother when I was fourteen."

Pete stared at him.

"Then it was a van on cinderblocks at the scrapyard," Clint continued, casual. "Let me think…oh yeah, and after that we moved to an abandoned firehouse. That place was the bomb. The baseboard heaters still worked somehow and we got to slide down the pole to get to breakfast. After that we made it into the circus. Good times."

"G…good?"

"Well, in a relative sense." Clint pointed to a small scar on his chin. "I got this when I tried to leap from the pole halfway down and banged my jaw on a table. Don't tell Banner—I made up an epic backstory when we were swapping scar stories one night, about how a rival archer tried to shoot me once and his metal fletching cut my face."

Pete's hesitant smile competed with the sun for Clint. The reminder that he was still a kid in there. It lightened grief's noose that had lived around Clint's throat for the past two years. He breathed easier just being around the boy, even when he didn't talk.

"Won't tell."

"Thanks, Pete." Clint cupped a hand over Pete's and felt the cold knuckles warm. The white knuckles faded to pink at his touch. "Pretty sure Bruce made up a few too, so we're even. Point of all this is…something tells me you've had to be the adult in your own life for a long time."

Pete's fingers twitched. He rolled onto his side facing Clint and curled up into the world's tiniest human ball. Clint worried this was a defensive posture to ward off his line of questioning or hide, but then Pete wormed closer to his shoulder.

"Hurts," Pete whispered.

"Yeah," Clint whispered back. "It does. And I'm sorry you know what that unique brand of loneliness feels like. Is this why you won't come near our house? You want to keep being independent?"

Pete played with Clint's thumb still on his chest.

"Pete?"

"Kinda."

"What does kinda mean?"

Pete shrank into himself. "Not safe."

Those tiny fragments left of Clint's heart were somehow big enough to splinter even further and gouge at the soft flesh of his hope. He fought hard to maintain a light grip on Pete's hand. And an even voice.

Keep him communicating. That's all that matters right now and his most immediate need.

"Have I done something to make you feel unsafe, Pete?"

Pete shook his head, eyes wide.

"Are you worried we won't feed you anymore or…or that we'll hurt you while you're asleep and vulnerable? Because we have locks on the doors if…"

"No." Pete pressed the heel of one hand into his eye. "Not safe for…for you."

He spit it out all in one snare drum crash, a high hat's hiss for every drop of frustration in the boy's voice.

Clint sat up so fast Pete jumped. A few of the trickier pieces in the jigsaw puzzle that constituted Pete the homeless wonder suddenly clinked into place. At freaking last. Just corner pieces, shapeless and without context, but now Clint didn't feel so in the dark.

"Pete—are you scared that you're a danger to us?"

It was absurd. The most outlandish thing Clint had ever heard. One of their hens would sooner strap on a mini bullet belt and go on a Rambo rampage than this twig of a kid cause them harm on purpose. Reason told Clint not to assume anything with someone he didn't know well, but gut instinct trumped it. Big time. He'd trust this kid to lead him blindfolded through a minefield, if not in terms of skill, then intent.

He'd never met a bigger heart in someone aside from Laura.

"Yes," Pete keened. His breathing started to rattle, breaths in the pan basin of his chest rather than deeper in his lungs.

Clint helped Pete sit up too, both to head off the hyperventilating and so he could look him in the eye. He framed the boy's agitated face in both hands, not taking any of it personally since it was all a masque for the terror behind his eyes. "Pete, look at me. Please. This is really important."

Pete breathed fast, eyes on the rushing water, tumultuous and wracked.

Clint brushed his thumbs over Pete's cheekbones. "Did you know I can hit an apple hanging from one of our trees, dead center, by throwing a knife from over twenty feet away?"

Pete's manic breaths lulled. His eyes finally swung around and he blinked at the non-sequitur, shaking his head.

"Because I can. I've always had good hand-eye coordination, the ability to aim things no matter the force or speed behind them. My reflexes are good too—I once saved Nathaniel from setting himself on fire while we were out camping, making s'mores, with only split second notice. He tripped towards the flames and I caught him before anything so much as singed."

Pete grimaced against Clint's palms. Good, the kid finally saw where Clint was going with this and couldn't deny the truth spread out in front of him.

"I'm aware I look kind of ridiculous fighting aliens with a stick and a string. And that's a good thing, because it means people underestimate me." Clint trailed Pete's eyes when they tried to flick away. "But it also means I can hold my own when there's danger. I'm sure I could protect myself and my family from you if it really came down to it."

Pete's lips quivered. He tried to tear his face out of Clint's hands but for once he persisted, touch barely there, feather light, but close by Pete's skin.

"Here's the great part though. I don't think I'll ever have to find out and I think you know that too. Because you moved your hammock just to accommodate a family of baby squirrels and tracked down my daughter's arrow and fixed my hearing aid without asking for anything in return."

Clint pressed their foreheads together for the briefest of moments, pouring every ounce of tenderness and care he held for the boy into that one motion. He pulled back and held Pete's eyes. "That doesn't sound like someone who's unsafe to be around, not for us anyway."

Pete's breath hitched for an entirely new reason. He clasped Clint's wrists on either side without seeming to notice he was clinging, the internal desperation broadcast in that one move. The same move all of Clint's kids did when they were sick or scared. The same move Cooper did whenever he had nightmares. A child who needed help.

"Even if none of my above points were true, even if I was a blind elderly man, it wouldn't make a difference."

Pete searched Clint's eyes. "It wouldn't?"

"No—because I'm still the adult. Not you. You're seventeen, kid. We're supposed to handle things when they're over your head."

Pete's nails dug into Clint a little, out of fear and pain and memories he'd pay dearly to witness.

"Just, there's always…blood an-and…" Words tumbled from Pete's shaky lips in a rockslide. "Safer if no one 'members me…they all…"

It would be a boldfaced lie to say Clint understood any of this, but one word stuck out. "Blood? Pete, did you watch someone die? You don't have to answer if this is too much all at once, I just—"

"Yes." Pete closed his eyes after he said it, like someone snipped his guy wires. "Yes. They…"

Hot steam climbed Clint's larynx. "More than one someone?"

Pete nodded, spent of words and beyond the realm of tears to a quaking place of the soul few visited in their lifetime. Clint had lived there after his family disappeared and by the looks of things—this deprived, precious boy had too. Was still living there.

"I'm so sorry." Clint stroked under his ear. "I can pretty much guarantee none of them were your fault, from what I know of you."

A thunderous look stole across Pete's face, undermined by wounded eyes. "Y'wrong."

"I'm not. Short of you pulling the trigger, so to speak, I don't think anyone who died in your life would blame you. Did you kill your loved ones, Pete?"

Pete shook his head with another haunted look.

"Then trust me when I say you have nothing to punish yourself for."

Pete stared at Clint for a long beat, assessing something he couldn't read. Pete certainly didn't look convinced on this point, but his gaze was open and free again.

Then he abruptly toppled forward.

Said reflexes came in handy, just in time for Clint to catch him against his chest and cradle the curly head. "It's alright, Pete. I gotcha. We're alright now."

All of Pete's measly body weight flagged against Clint and Clint discovered he had room in his heart for one more kid. More room than he ever dreamt. That space had been furnished and aching for residence from the moment Clint found its owner in the woods.

"I'm just so tired."

"I know," Clint soothed. "I know you are, Pete. You've been so brave and held on for so long. And all by yourself…at least when I was homeless, I had my brother. It's okay to let go now."

"Don't know if I…know how to." Pete's ribs inflated a gusty breath under Clint's hand.

Clint's throat worked for a beat.

Should I…?

"Pete? Think you could stand sleeping under a roof, just for one night? Just for tonight. Even our barn out back would give you better rest. Or the woodshed. I don't care which or if you sleep on the floor, but I think you need walls and a door that locks tonight."

One of Pete's hands slithered up between their chests. Clint felt it clenching in the shirt fabric, like a stress ball.

"You can be gone by the time we get up in the morning. Don't even have to tell me when you leave."

Pete switched so he clenched Clint's shirt instead. He murmured something in his throat, too low for Clint to catch.

Then—

"O…okay."

Clint froze. For real? Was his hearing aid malfunctioning?

"Just for tonight."

He said yes. He said yes!

"Great, Pete, that's…" Clint kissed his curls and found himself laughing. "That's real good. Thank you."

The walk back was quiet, but a lazy kind of quiet. They stopped at the tree house to check on their supplies, where Clint had stored all the lumber and even some of the hanging branches he cut down for Laura, to use for ladder rungs in the tree once stripped and sanded. Pete had agreed to help him with it tomorrow.

Clint spent the walk on clouds high above the woods, his mind a-whir with revelations about Pete and the fact he himself would likely sleep ten times better knowing Pete was a stone's throw from their bedroom window.

He trusted me with it all. From his pizza tastes to the fact he was scared to be around them, the adults especially it seemed, because of people he'd watched die, that guilt. It wasn't a complete picture, but it was enough for now.

More than enough.

Guilt. An old and loathed bedfellow. It had stolen from Clint many a night's sleep and nearly cost him his family once he confided in Laura last year about what he'd done, the people he'd killed for those five years. Laura, while needing some space for a few nights to digest that, had never judged him for his actions.

Pete picked at the hem of his ratty science T-shirt and bumped shoulders with Clint every few steps, if he had to lean to step over a tall tree root or dodge a nettle bush. He hummed under his breath. Not a melody or song exactly, but introspective notes like Cooper did studying a hard English passage or like Pete was talking to himself.

The white gem of the Barton homestead glinted through the last stragglers of the forest line. Clint stepped out into the field and gestured with his arm. "I tied up a tire swing a few years ago and Cooper adores that thing. We have football—soccer—nets behind the house and a picnic table with a bonfire pit for summer cookouts. Around there is the barn and next to it is the woodshed and coop. Don't let our hens boss you around."

Clint stopped when he noticed a glaring absence beside him. "Pete?"

He turned and saw Pete exactly, to the inch, at the line where the trees ended. Sweat snaked along his temples. He'd lost all colour in his face.

"Come on, Pete. We're almost there and you've made it so far." Clint repressed the urge to plead. "A few more steps to go."

Pete just stood there.

"Doesn't the porch sound comfy? Much better than your hammock, I'd imagine."

The boy threw him a gloomy look, shaking his head. Stark horror flared in his eyes. "I can't."

"Can't what?"

"I can't do it." Pete's body began to shake, just like the day Clint's found him, his teeth clacking.

Clint put both hands on his knees to reduce his height and put Pete's eye level higher than his own. "Why not, baby? What's goin' on?"

"Please…"

Clint slowly took the boy's hand. It trembled like a livewire against his palm, fritzed out. "Would it help if you closed your eyes? I can lead you the rest of the way."

Pete tried to tug out of his grip. "No. Please, Mr. Barton. I can't. It's…I…"

Something about the sudden response triggered a memory for Clint, rescued soldiers returning from places where they'd been conditioned by the enemy. Facing certain tasks they were often punished for had caused psychological distress after the fact.

Clint swallowed.

One day at a time.

"That's okay, Pete." He backtracked and this time Pete initiated stepping closer, into the hug, though his arms still wouldn't wrap around Clint's waist. He sniffled into Clint's shirt. "There've been a lotta leaps of faith today. This is just one too many, huh? Too scary right now?"

Pete nodded against his chest.

"Everyone has their limits and I respect that this is yours for today. You sleep tight, bubba." The tips of Pete's ears reddened and Clint squeezed him. He wished he could wrap the boy in hockey pads and protect him from everything, the torment inside his head especially. For now, he held him until the shakes dissipated. "Feel free to come back if you change your mind or it rains. Any time, any night. I mean it."

Pete's signed 'thanks' and brought the letter C to his eye like half of a binocular set.

A faint smile softened Clint's face. "Is that my new sign name?"

Pete nodded and stepped back, his body relaxing at the distance from the house. He waved goodbye.

"I like it. Suits both angles of who I am." Besides, it was no small thing to be given a sign name by someone else. It cemented friendships and inclusion into a particular group.

Clint waved back, then signed Pete's name. The boy's narrow profile was soon engulfed by mid-day shadows, their slant across his Greco curls.

Standing there, watching him go, Clint felt like he'd been shot again. Selfish frustration warred with understanding. Clint wouldn't have trusted someone after a month enough to sleep in their space, when he lived in the scrapyard. Pete was doing amazing by comparison—and besides, if he said yes once, chances were he would again at a later date. Hopefully.

Still, turning around and walking home was one of the hardest things Clint had ever done.

~OL~

"And he fixed it? Just like that?"

"Had the frequency channels calibrated in under fifteen minutes."

Clint watched Laura from his place on the bed, her ungainly slip into her favourite night dress. The flannel one with cats and mugs of tea on it. Fuzzy socks completed the outfit for her perpetually cold feet, an accessory Clint appreciated.

"That's amazing." Laura lifted the covers and crawled in beside him. "Let me see."

Clint took out his hearing aid to show her. Laura's eyes widened.

She waited until he had it back in his ear to speak. "Are you sure it was as busted as you thought? This looks like the day you brought it home from Tony's lab. It had a loose part on one side, remember? From…"

"My run in with the imposter Nebula, yeah." A hive of bees threatened to erupt in Clint's stomach if he dwelt any more on that day, so he didn't bother. "I'm telling you, Lo, the thing had wires dangling everywhere. And Pete got them sorted in no time."

"You know what this means, don't you?"

Clint did, but he indulged her anyway. "What's that?"

"We have a genius on our hands."

"I think you might be right."

Clint held out his arm for Laura to cuddle against his chest, a completion of the nighttime routine. "He almost made it to the house."

"What?" Laura's head lifted. "As in…"

"I convinced him to sleep under a roof, the barn even. Anything to get him away from that dingy hammock and being out in the elements. To drop some of those adrenaline levels. He got all the way to the treeline, past Lila's archery target."

Laura's eyes dropped to half-mast. "I'm sorry it didn't work, honey."

"Me too."

"Baby steps, right? Maybe next time he'll make it to the tire swing and then from there to the chicken coop."

"I hope you're right." Clint didn't feel as confident.

They were both almost asleep, that mobile ticking away on its eternal track thanks to an inventor who didn't know when to quit and instilled that quality into everything he touched, when Clint smiled in the dark. A dopey, lopsided thing that warmed his chest.

"Pete hugged me of his own volition today. First time he's ever done that. Got to hug him three whole times. Felt like holding a beanpole."

Well. Technically Pete had fallen into Clint of his own volition, but it counted. Even if Pete hadn't wrapped his arms around Clint in return, the fact Pete sought out an adult's—a man's—touch by his own choice counted. The tether insisted it counted a lot. Clint still felt in the dark about the specifics of that but he reveled in today's moment of trust.

"Good. He needs about five hundred more hugs and some lovin' besides."

"I'm working on that."

Laura pecked Clint's jaw. "I'm so proud of you both. Night, hon."

"Night, wagon wheel."

Laura's eyes slipped closed for good as she murmured a laugh.

The mobile's pieces winked in the ambient light, like shooting stars that never faded. Clint watched them spin on their track, three stars, one moon, and a tiny red rocket ship. One of the stars in particular sported a little tail, a dash of trailing light.

And right as sleep claimed Clint for the night—he made a wish.

A dangerous wish. But one that kept that smile on his face even once he melted into a deep sleep void of dreams for once.


AN: SO UH all I can say as a disclaimer is that for all the angst here, there'll be twice as much fluff in future chapters. This first bit of the story is more about trust building and that non-linear road of healing between two people as they learn to trust each other. This is the last tough chapter before things start to look up!